Who gets believed and why

Joel Adejola

I build institutions that question foundations.

Abuja to Kansas.

I'm a Nigerian philosophy and physics student at the University of Kansas. I build things when I think existing institutions aren't asking the right questions — a sports intelligence operation, investigative journalism, a platform about what happens to knowledge when AI can produce it cheaper than people can evaluate it. The thread connecting all of it: what makes a claim worth believing, and who decides.

Where the disciplines meet

Three ways of seeing.

01

Epistemology

What gives a claim its weight?

Three semesters studying testimony, justification, and what happens when AI can generate content indistinguishable from human expertise. ~300 writing consultations at KU's Writing Center, watching the gap between compliance and understanding.

Epistemic Certainty

02

Measurement

Whether the data warrants the conclusion

Physics trained me to ask what you're actually measuring. Football analytics trained me to notice when nobody else is asking. STATSWING exists because those questions turn out to be the same question.

Contested Aerial Opportunities

03

Building

Institutions from scratch

STATSWING covers 14,800+ players across 21 leagues — built in three weeks, one operator. Before that: investigative journalism, a Senate resolution, a public dashboard with 10,000+ visitors. The pattern: see a gap, build something that fills it.

Decision Architecture

What I've built

Institutions, investigations, questions

STATSWING

Operator

A sports intelligence institution that questions the measurement infrastructure professional football operates on. Research publications, player assessment grades, and intelligence products — built from proprietary analytical frameworks and expert judgment.

14,800+ players21 leagues3 research publicationsPublic analytics dashboard
Public Dashboard

Investigations

Reporter

A pattern: encountering institutional failure and responding by investigating rather than accepting.

N2bn in abandoned fire-fighting equipmentICIR Nigeria, 2023 — ~20 years of government neglect at Abuja Stadium
Student Senate Resolution 2025-304Identified KU Housing's misapplication of FLSA dual employment law. Cited 29 CFR 541.700. Passed General Assembly. Transmitted to Chancellor.

PingBack

Writer

What gives a claim its epistemic weight when AI can generate identical content? Essays on knowledge, testimony, and the future of authorship.

Coming soon

Selected writing

Ideas that cross boundaries.

STATSWING ResearchMar 2026 · 15 min

Contested Aerial Opportunities: Redefining How We Measure Aerial Play

Aerial duel statistics structurally miscount 80% of contested aerial situations. This paper proposes a new measurement framework.

Contested Aerial OpportunitiesDecision Architecture
STATSWING ResearchMar 2026 · 14 min

Epistemic Certainty in Recruitment: What Football's Confidence Infrastructure Conceals

Football's confidence infrastructure is unexamined. This paper proposes an epistemic disclosure framework for recruitment decisions.

Epistemic CertaintyDecision Architecture
STATSWING ResearchMar 2026 · 12 min

The Execution Layer: Why Transfer Prediction Ignores Mechanics

Transfer prediction operates on a single analytical layer. Mechanics data exists but the products that use it don't.

Portable Traits
The University Daily KansanFeb 2025 · 5 min

Campus Fashion: What Do KU Students Wear?

An opinion piece on style, identity, and what the way KU students dress says about how they see themselves.

BallerzBantzJun 2024 · 8 min

Precision Play: The Stiff Arm

Expanding your circle of control — retaining command when running and dribbling. What precision play looks like when the defender commits.

Circle of Control
BallerzBantzJun 2024 · 10 min

Outlets: Football's Pressure Valves

Introducing 'outlet value' — a new concept for understanding how teams release pressure.

Outlet ValueCircle of Control
BallerzBantzMay 2024 · 7 min

Avoiding the Description Trap when Scouting (or Analyzing)

Most scouting reports describe what happened. The best ones explain why it matters.

Description TrapFalsifiable Projections
BallerzBantzApr 2024 · 9 min

Beyond the Playbook: The Role of Anti-Strategy in Competition

Anti-strategy operates at four levels: player, team, organizational, and cross-field. It's the game within the game.

Anti-StrategyPortable Traits
BallerzBantzJan 2024 · 12 min

Developing A Framework to Assess and Fine-Tune Dribbling in Football

A year-long immersion into the mechanics of dribbling, broken into three phases of decision-making.

Portable TraitsCircle of Control
The ICIRFeb 2023 · 8 min

Abuja Stadium: How FG Abandoned Over N2bn Worth of Fire-Fighting Trucks for Almost 20 Years

Investigation into ~20 years of government neglect — abandoned equipment worth billions at the national stadium.

The ICIRDec 2022 · 6 min

At Last, Messi Immortalises His Football Fairytale

On the night Argentina won the World Cup — the culmination of a career's worth of questions about greatness, legacy, and what a single tournament can settle.

The ICIRDec 2022 · 7 min

Walid Regragui Is Setting the Pace for Africa's Football Ambitions

How Morocco's manager built something nobody saw coming — and what it revealed about the assumptions built into tournament predictions.

MediumAug 2022 · 6 min

Nigeria: Disenfranchised Teens

On voter registration suppression and what it means when a generation is locked out of the process before they can participate.

Connecting ideas

Every idea connects to another.

Hover to explore how concepts thread through the writing. Click an article to read it.

ArticleConceptConnection

Ideas

Frameworks and recurring questions

Concepts that show up across the research, the scouting, and the investigations. Click one to see where it appears.

  • Epistemic Certainty
  • Contested Aerial Opportunities
  • Decision Architecture
  • Portable Traits
  • Falsifiable Projections
  • Circle of Control
  • Outlet Value
  • Anti-Strategy
  • Description Trap

The work continues

The work continues.

If you're building something that questions its own foundations, or if you think I should be questioning yours — I'd like to hear from you.

Abuja. Johannesburg. Lawrence.